Part of Wellington's history will be lost when music venue San Francisco Bath House gets a makeover next month.

The popular music venue will be earthquake strengthened in January and its famous green room may be taken apart.

San Francisco Bath House was called Indigo until 2006.

It has been a popular venue for any number of bands, including Fat Freddy's Drop, Laurence Arabia and international act RZA.

But venue manager Ziggy Ziya said he was more concerned about keeping the venue's green room than the stage.

"It's been the original green room for all the performers to hang out pre- and post-show and they'll quite often have a jam on the piano or tag the walls before they go on stage," he said.

Wall taggings have been made by such bands as Shapeshifter, Dirty Projectors and Immortal Technique.

"There's some pretty good stuff in here," Mr Ziya said, while looking at a sketch by international music producer RZA of the Wu- Tang Clan.

"Some of these go back to before we were here. We've got rid of some of them. Penises seems to be quite popular."

The earthquake strengthening would take about two months. Mr Ziya could not say whether the name would be changed when the venue reopened.

"Whatever happens we want to keep these walls because there's just so much history," he said.

San Fransisco Bath House owner Tim Ward said last month that the Cuba St bar would close on January 1 for about two months and, confirmed it would be reopening.

"It'll have more strings to its bow. It's been in dire need of an update for quite a while," he said.

The venue will hold a last hurrah on New Year's Eve, featuring Bath House regulars The Phoenix Foundation and Hang the DJ.

Doors open at 8pm and $40 presales are available from utr.co.nz.

"It's two quite iconic Wellington acts who have been performing for quite a long time in this space," Mr Ziya said. "It's nice to have them here on the same night on New Year's Eve. It will be a good party."